July 3, 2011

I gave the oud bruin a taste this weekend. I was fairly surprised by the taste. It had a lighter brown color than oud bruins tend to be, which is a minor issue (to me). It had a lot of brett brux flavor, which was unsurprising but good. However it lacked any real sour flavor. I'm hoping over time the sourness will be a little more prominent. I think maybe the brown ale was a little too sweet and I didn't sour mash a large enough portion of the pale ale portion. When I added a little vinegar in the glass the beer really popped and got more of that oud bruin flavor (even though it is really the wrong kind of acid for an oud bruin). So that says to me I undershot the sourness in the process.

I definitely intend to brew it again, although next time I will sour mash the entire pale portion and let lacto do its thing. I would also add more vinegar to get some more acetic acid flavor. It will lower the ABV some but oud bruins tend not to be a high ABV beer so it's not a big issue. For now I will just blend some vinegar into the glass to get the right flavor. Otherwise I'm happy with the big brett character and the specialty malt flavors.

So looking back, for a six month old oud bruin it isn't as complex as a beer with a long aging process but it is an enjoyable beer and definitely a worthwhile way to produce a brett beer without having to wait tremendous lengths of time. It probably could have been produced in 2-3 months. I will concede that a 12-18 month old oud bruin would probably beat mine in a taste test but it's my hope that next time I do this I can tweak the process and the recipe to make a more complex beer to match the complexity normally found in a more aged version. I'd probably go with more darker crystals to fix the color and some minor flavor issues but for now I'm looking forward to enjoying the 4.5 gallons I have left of this batch. Maybe next year I'll give it another go.